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Ozzie speaks out about immigration law

Ozzie speaks out about immigration law

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NEW YORK -- After the Major League Baseball Players Association released a statement Friday opposing Arizona's new immigration law as written, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was asked for his opinion prior to Friday's series opener with the Yankees.

Guillen is a citizen of Venezuela, but also became a citizen of the United States on Jan. 20, 2006. Guillen's three sons and wife all are U.S. citizens.

"The only thing I'm concerned about this problem if they take people out of their jobs, they're working and all of a sudden they come and get them out," Guillen said. "Those people come here as immigrants to work. That's it. And MLB and the Players Association make an agreement or not, I'm not part of that. I just hope they look at it very well about what they're doing. Believe me, we're pretty smart.

"We're going to keep moving around. We're not leaving, because we didn't do wrong here. We just work. We just come here to work. We got to support baseball, and that's what it is. I know there are people upset about it. I'm upset about it, and wish I could do more about it than what I'm doing."

"People come here for a reason," Guillen said. "They don't come here to do bad stuff. They got a reason [to sign the law]. But I was disappointed, because I think this problem should have been resolved a long time ago."

One idea Guillen came up with was some sort of working visa for the people in question.

"Nobody sees those guys getting up at 4 a.m. to go to work on the farm, picking all kinds of stuff and leaving at 6 o'clock in the afternoon. Nobody complains about that," Guillen said. "Leave those guys alone. Help them.

"Try to do something different to maintain those guys here. As soon as you do that, there are less immigrants, less illegal people here, because they help each other. They cannot live without us. Put it that way. They're workaholics. And this country can't survive without them.

"There's a lot of people from this country who are lazy. We're not," Guillen said. "Prove me wrong. A lot of people in this country want to be on the computer and send e-mails to people. We do the hard work. We're the ones who go out and work in the sun to make this country better."